Stats

Fusion between human and water bug. This heavy-duty hybrid's aquatic adaptations are equally practical in a wide range of hostile conditions; storing days worth of oxygen in specialized rectal sacs, the creature can hermetically seal its unbelievably durable shell and function comfortably from the vacuum of space to the abyssal trenches of the sea, resisting extremes of pressure, temperature, energy bombardment and chemical agents alike.

The Exonaut is strictly carnivorous, injecting a paralyzing digestive enzyme through its beak and drinking the liquefied contents of prey. While happiest in a fluid environment, its hybrid anatomy does not lend itself well to active swimming.

-------

I've had this idea for years, but it went through so many revisions that I just didn't like one bit. Very happy with it now. For a long time I wasn't sure what a waterbug hybrid could even really do, but I figure its ability to stay underwater makes it tough against all sorts of attacks.

This is a creative idea, and it looks great. Reminds me of the lifeform in Lifeform as well as the Mummy Nest Flyer. But honestly I've never seen anything quite like this, either visually or conceptually. Actually, this seems really familiar. Is my memory failing again? Did you do an earlier version of this very same Mortasheen?

The almost featureless shell suits it well, and I love the pincers with 4 equidistant digits. I remember seeing a robotic submarine with claws almost like that. The feet look like they must have 5 or 6 digits. It would be nice if they matched the hands more closely. The gooey, fetus-like seahorse-mantis seems approprate for the inner being. The head could use some more details to make it interesting, but I like how you drew nearly microscopic segments on the neck.

Yeah, I was inspired by the look of some of the earliest real diving suits and submersibles. I had various sketches where it would have had just a big head with eyes giving a diving suit impression, but it seemed really boring until I finally put a little bug body for its "face"